Out Of Thin Air (Chapter Twelve) How Not To Think Things Through
Let me give you a little insight into bus travel- It's not a good idea to go on a four hour bus ride without anything to occupy you other than the nutrition facts on the back of a Doritos bag.
I was entertained for about thirty seconds over how comfy the seats were. My ticket had me in the aisle, but I scooted over to the window seat when no one wound up sitting there. The bus was only a third of the way full, mostly with business people. I stuck out like a cow on Jupiter compared to their suits and brief cases.
Eastern Indiana whizzed by me, and I quickly lost interest in the endless loop of cornfields. My iPod was in my backpack on Aiden's staircase, along with my phone and notebook. I had absolutely nothing to do.
I was extremely careful not to use my power. At first, out of pure boredom, I wondered if maybe I could possibly speed up time instead of stop it. But then Bill Nye the Science Guy popped up in my brain and reminded me about inertia. If I accidentally stopped time, everything would stop moving and I would keep going. I would end up ramming headfirst into the bus seat in front of me at around 55 miles per hour.
And though a lot of things sounded better than ever facing Aiden ever again ever, dying wasn't on that list.
I also tried sleeping to pass the time, but that wasn't very successful either. My mind was still swarming with the events of the past 24 hours. Was it really just yesterday that I discovered my power? Was it really just this morning that I finally figured out what Aiden and his family were? Both of those seemed like an eternity behind me.
I had had so many questions answered, but most of them just made even more. The biggest one that stuck in my brain was WHY? Why did they wasn’t me to stay with them so badly? What about me was so special?
Well, smart one, for one you can stop time, spat the pessimistic voice in the back of my head. Second, Aiden sort of likes you, and I'm sure that has nothing to do with the whole "stay with us or else" thing. Great. Not only was my brain thinking for itself, but it was sarcastic.
I wondered briefly what the "or else" might be. Aiden hadn't exactly summoned a brick wall out of thin air to stop me. He had kissed me, though. Was that his strategy to keep me there?
It seemed like I was spending a pretty large amount of my free time lately being hopelessly confused.
About a century and a half of confusion and internal debate, the scenery outside slowly started to change. There were less and less corn fields, farm houses, and ferocious dairy cows and more factories and smog-filled air.
A sign off to the side of the road read "The People of Gary Welcome You!" So this was the infamous Gary, Indiana. If my stereotypical assumptions were correct, the people of Gary weren't the welcoming type.
Then the smoke stacks started turning into buildings, then skyscrapers. These were the hugest buildings I had ever seen. How did the wind not blow them over?My mind was already blown, and I hadn't even been in the city for five minutes.
The bus had to wait in line at a toll booth (My first official toll booth. What a landmark experience.) but we finally got into the city. It was even more amazing thanthe skyline. The skyscrapers looked even more ginormous when you were looking up at them. It made me feel extremely insignificant.
The streets were lined with people. There had to be more people crossing the street here than would be in my graduating class back home. In fact, you could probably cram the entire population of Wednesday into one of these skyscrapers and people would still have a bunch of elbow room.
The bus pulled into the station, and I tried to look as inconspicuous as a fourteen-year-old runaway who could stop time could look. I didn't really look homeless anymore, considering that before the bus left I had tried to scrape as much mud off my clothes as I could. However, my clothes were still pretty dirty. I decided to make it my first order of business to get some new clothes.
I stepped off the bus to take my first official breath of Chicago air...
Note to self: First breaths should generally be taken as far away from smokers as possible. I looked like an idiot, coughing and choking and gagging, but I think I gained as little attention as could.
So far, things were going surprisingly well.
Compared to the other people hanging around the bus station, I actually looked pretty normal. Of course, most of those people were either hobos or... just plain creepy guys. I really didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. At least I wasn't standing out.
The area around me was pretty purely residential. I
could see that huge black building (The Sears Tower, I think it was called) from here, and decided to head off toward it. I guessed there must be some stores or hotels farther downtown.
Then, I stopped dead in my tracks. It wasn't really an epiphany, but something along the lines of that. Hotels. That was the word that made me realize how deep I had gotten myself in to this. For the past five hours or so I had been operating on pure confusion and hysteria. It was like I had been possessed, unable to make a logical decision. And now I was 500 miles from home with $80 to live off for conceivably the rest of my life.
I never was one for actually thinking things through.
Nevertheless, I took a deep breath and carried on. The sidewalks here weren't nearly as crowded as the ones as we were coming into the city. I had never waited at cross walkbefore, and I can tell you that it really isn't as enjoyable an experience as you would guess. In Wednesday, there was only one actual stoplight. All the other intersections had stoplights. So the streets of Chicago were added to the list of things that blew my mind.
This city was almost oozing with stuff. On one side of the street was a deli, on the other a video rental. Neither of which we had in Wednesday. A block later I spied a small tunnel poking out of the ground. Upon further investigation, I found it was a train stop.
It's the little things in life that make you want to squeal like an idiot.
I hurried down the stairway, expecting some fabulous display of underground train stationing, but instead found what looked like a sewer tunnel mixed with the reception counter of a hotel. They did have those turnstile things, like the ones you see at the entrances to zoos in movies. But when I tried to go through one, it wouldn't budge.
"Try putting your card in again," suggested the inattentive attendant.
Oh. Duh. Of course you would have to pay.
"How would I go about getting a card?" I asked her. She sighed and dropped her magazine.
"How many trips do you want?" She looked extremely inconvenienced. Well excuse me for making you actually do your job. My bad.
"How many can I get for..." I pulled out the wallet out of my pocket, "...five bucks?"
The attendant took the money I was holding and stuck it in some sort of machine. A few seconds later she presented me with a small card with the letters CTA on the front. "This'll get you two trips, unless you transfer." she said. I pretended to know what that meant. "Have a nice day. She picked her magazine back up and pretended I didn't exist again.
Well that was helpful. Sort of.
I stuck the card in the recepter part of the turny thing and after a moment, it popped back out. I grabbed it and tried walking through again. Success!
I took an escalator (once again, wow) even farther underground. It opened up into a long tunnel, with rails on either side. People lined the middle part, from hobos to college students. I sat down onone of the benches, exhausted. Appearently people did a lot of walking in Chicago, something I really wasn't used to. I relaxed and took a breather.
Then, I heard a rumbling. A huge rumbling, like a stampeed of elephants chasing an avalanche. Was the roof caving in? Had something exploded? Why was no one else freaking out?
The rumbling grew, and I started to hyperventilate. Was I really the only one who heard that? Then, on the tracks across from me, a train flew by. As it began to slow, so did the rumbling.
Oh. Duh.
Once again, Luna manages to look like an idiot. Congratulations, self.
"Caution. Doors closing," said a pre-recorded, machine-like voice. I scampered onto the train along with half of the people waiting. I managed to get a seat while most of the people wound up standing.
"This is a Red Line train going to Howard. The next stop is Monroe." said the same automated voice. "Doors open on the left at Monroe.
While I was trying to figure out what the voice's words meant and why they were put in that order, the train lurched forward. The side of my head was rammed against a plastic barrier separating the row of seats from the door.
"Crap," I muttered, rubbing the spot the barrier had hit me.
Whoa. Déjà vu.
Just three days ago I had done the exact same thing, only it was a bus seat instead of a barrier. Just three days ago I had been a perfectly normal kid going to a perfectly normal school. In just three days, my life had been turned upside down.
I felt a wave of fury, just for a moment. This was all Aiden's fault. If it wasn't for him and his stupid family, this would never have happened. If it wasn't for him, this would have been some other unlucky girl, not me. I wanted to rip his head off. Again.
But now there really wasn't any way out of it, was there?